The federal government introduced major, sweeping reforms to the temporary foreign worker program Friday that will slash the number of low-skilled workers in Canada and pose a challenge to companies looking to hire temporary help.

Starting today, employers in the food, accommodation, and retail trade sectors will be barred from applying for temporary workers in provinces and territories with an unemployment level above six per cent.

Application fees will jump from $275 to $1000 per worker, effective immediately, the government said Friday. Amongs other streams, the fee hikes also apply to live-in caregivers and on-farm primary agricultural workers — streams that were otherwise excluded from changes announced Friday.

While the government has lifted the moratorium on food services applied in April, employers in all industries will now be subject to a cap on the number of low-wage workers they can hire. Low-wage temporary foreign workers will now be capped at 10 per cent of the workforce per employer, per worksite.

Rather than breaking up the program by employment categories, the government has decided to define employees based on their wage categories.

“Wage is a more objective and accurate reflection of value of skill level and local labour supply,” the document prepared by the federal government states.

Low-wage workers, formerly classified low-skilled workers, are those below a province’s or territory’s median wage. Anyone worker who is paid above median wage will not be subject to the cap.

The full cap will be implemented incrementally, starting at 30 per cent immediately, 20 per cent in July 2015 and 10 per cent in July 2016.

Employers with workforces already below 30 per cent will see their rates frozen. For example, if 25 per cent of a company’s workforce is made up of low-wage temporary foreign workers it will not be allowed to raise its cap to the full 30 per cent.

The delayed implementation gives employers time to find Canadian workers to fill labour shortages, a department official told reporters on background.

Data provided by the government shows that the cap is expected to reduce the number of low-skilled workers – now called low-wage workers – by 16,278 workers or 52 per cent in three years time.

Ontario and Alberta are the two provinces hardest hit by the change. Alberta will drop from 14,307 low-wage workers to 8,407 by the time the cap is fully implemented. Ontario will go from 4,419 low-wage workers to 1,369.

Current agreements between the federal government and some provinces will also change. Right now, five provinces and one territory (Nova Scotia, Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia and the Yukon) have side agreements that allow employers to bring in temporary foreign workers to their provinces.

In addition to the cap, low-wage workers will only be allowed to stay in Canada for two years, down from four under the current program. Employers will also have to apply for a Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) – the approval required before hiring most categories of foreign workers – every year. The LMIA will now be valid for a one year period rather two years under the old program.

Employers who want LMIA’s will have to prove they tried to hired Canadians, including providing data about how many people applied for a job, and how many people were interviewed. The government will then match that information with local EI and unemployment data.

Employers will also have to provide transition plans to show how they intend to wean their companies off high-skilled workers. That plan will require employers to show how they intend to train local workers to fill those positions.

Canadians will also be allowed to apply directly to job openings on Jobs Bank.

News of the long-awaited reforms comes after a spate of allegations of abuse that forced the government to repeatedly defend the merits of the program in question period and in the media. Last year, the Royal Bank of Canada was accused of replacing Canadian workers with cheaper temporary foreign workers. Then, in April, three McDonalds restaurants in Victoria were banned from the program by Employment and Social Development Canada after reports surfaced that they were giving temporary foreign workers priority status or more hours than their Canadian colleagues.

The reformed program includes significant penalties of up to $100,000 and imprisonment of up to five years for employers who are found to have broken the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, or abused the program.

Employers who intentionally misrepresent or give inaccurate information on their Labour Market Impact Assessment – formerly known as a Labour Market Opinion or LMO – can be fined up to $100,000.

“Canadian Interests” includes TFW in Canada under reciprocal employment and employment benefit arrangements, as spouses and common law partners and in relation to research and studies.

In addition to increasing penalties, the government has committed to increasingly the number of inspections and criminal investigations. One in four employers using the program will be inspected each year, according to the document prepared by the government.

When asked, a government official speaking on background said roughly 20 additional inspectors will be hired to deal with the heightened demand.

Employers under investigation will be stripped of their ability to hire temporary foreign workers and will be unable to fill labour shortages with temporary help until they have been cleared of any prospective wrongdoing.

The government has also created a second program, the International Mobility Program that will be operate within the Department of Citizenship and Immigration. The program is aimed at advancing Canada’s broad economic and cultural interests. Unlike the temporary foreign worker program, the International Mobility Program will not be based on employer demand, will not require a labour market impact assessment and will be largely based on international agreements, like NAFTA.

The very fact that this is even an issue in the first place just goes to show how bleak the Canadian economy is in the first place. Hopefully we as an inclusive society can get a fresh start in 2015 with the demise of this Corporate Occupied Government, The Harper Conservatives.

Ontario has shed 300,000 good paying manufacturing jobs since 2007. Some Ontarians have had no choice but to migrate to the service sector to survive and they have realized with some astonishment that the TFW program has inundated this sector of our economy. The Harper Conservatives have spent all of their political capital on insuring Alberta”s oil has access to world markets and they have abandoned Eastern Canada”s economy.

Ontario still hasn’t recovered from the Harris gang who pillaged and broke the treasury. Of course extreme right-wingers keep blathering on how bad the Liberals are because they don’t understand what the word liberal means.

John, haven’t you heard about the Dutch disease in which the export of petroleum in Alberta drives the Canadian dollar so high that the manufacturing in Ontario is hit really hard. A high dollar hits exports from central Canada. That is down to the Harper government and their anything for Alberta oil. Not the liberals in Ontario.

That is a load of BS. Alberta has had a previous oil boom and it didn’t affect Ontario and our dollar has been high many times before and Ontario thrived. This is not the fault of the Harper government. It is all on the Liberals in Ontario. As for the Harper government doing anything for Alberta oil, that is a sock puppet speaking point and nothing more.

If you’ve traveled the world, you understand Canadian entitlement mentality. Granted, we live in the best country in the world so it’s somewhat expected.

What bothers me is how blind people are to the real issue. They are making up a fuss about jobs that most canadians do not want while completely ignoring those where most Canadians lose out. Fact is MOST temporary workers come from Europe and Australia and take the higher paying/desirable jobs. ie. Been to Whistler in the past 20 years? Why are they all Australian? I would have loved to have a job working the slopes during my gap years to help pay off my tuition, but for some reason the jobs always went to Aussies.

Kenney was invited to the Bilderberg meeting this year. Why is that? What has he got that they want? Or what is it they want him to do now? Steve Harper was at the Bilderberg meetings in past years and you can now see what his agenda has been so what’s Kenney going to be doing to Canada and Canadians? Bilderberg are the top 1% who manipulate our lives by getting politicians to do their bidding.

What does Steve ask you to call him, John, when he sends you his “talking points”? He must be proud, because you do very well delivering them, word for word! You personally have shown great maturity for a boy in short pants.

John, John, John, your diatribes against the Liberal government are evidence of an immature sore loser, unable to accept the results of an election. If your boy Stevie had been in control, robocalls and election fraud would have ensured a different result, I’m sure. Why didn’t Hudak ask for his help?

Start working at home with Google! It’s by-far the best job I’ve had. Last Wednesday I got a brand new BMW since getting a check for $6474 this – 4 weeks past. I began this 8-months ago and immediately was bringing home at least $77 per hour. I work through this link, go﻿ to tech tab for work detail………

I see none of these reforms will apply to the agriculture sector. It you think farming has a labour shortage now, wait in 10 20 years when we will have a population where nobody has done these jobs, not even for one summer. Farmers now turn down applications from young people looking for their first job but what are they going to do years down the road when Mexicans, Jamaicans etc. no longer want to come here to work for minimum wage. This has already happened with greenhouses starting to bring guys from Guatemala because I guess even their Mexican employees weren’t subservient or cheap enough. Who’s next after the Guatemalans? Haitians? Starving Ethiopians? How about just accepting the fact that we might have start treating farming just like any other business. How about if you can’t get good people you take a look in the mirror and reconsider how you treat your employees instead of expecting the government to come bail you out.

I’m worried about this list of skilled workers the government wants to fill with off shore people instead of training Canadians. This fancy solution to TFWs is a red herring to distract us from other initiatives to bring in foreign workers. Like the one to bring in 25,000 young people from countries like Ireland (10,000) Is your college or university student going with out a job? This program could be to blame. And what happened to the great training scheme that never got off the ground. Why isn’t the mains stream media ragging on about that. They go where the government wants them to go don’t they?